Mary Pinchot Meyer

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Mary Pinchot (14 October 1920-12 October 1964) was born on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, United States. Her father, Amos Pinchot, was a wealthy lawyer who helped fund "The Masses". He was also a leading figure in the Progressive Party. Her mother, Ruth Pinchot, was a journalist who worked for magazines such as The Nation and The New Republic.

After graduating from Vassar College, she married Cord Meyer, who became a top CIA official. A friend and classmate from Vassar, Cicely d'Autremont, married James Angleton, also of the CIA. Mary's sister Antoinette (Tony) married Ben Bradlee of The Washington Post in 1955. Mary was a painter and described as a free spirit, who tried hallucinogens with Timothy Leary at Harvard University by 1962, and told him the CIA was interested in the mind-control potential of LSD. That year Mary told James Truitt that she was having an affair with and had smoked marijuana with John F. Kennedy.

Mrs. Meyer was rumored to be a favorite mistress of President John F. Kennedy, was semi-publicly named as such by Philip Graham in early 1963, and is the subject of a book involving her private life and death, A Very Private Woman: The Life and Unsolved Murder of Presidential Mistress Mary Meyer. (The first chapter is online.)

On October 12, 1964, Mary Pinchot Meyer was murdered on the C&O Canal towpath in Georgetown, age 43. Her friend Anne Truitt was in Tokyo but learned of the murder that night. Truitt immediately contacted James Angleton and told him Mary had a diary and where it was — following Mary's instructions should anything happen to her. The diary was destroyed — although Bradlee claims he read it and it only contained sketches and ephemera because "she was some kind of artist."

Ray Crump was tried and acquitted of her murder.